We all regret the demise of the Rocky, though, the News was a better paper. The Rocky Mountain News shared its birthday with me and Shakespeare, and a few million others, all of whom are special. Yet the Post will have plenty of competition.

The Rocky’s demise may have proved the old newspaper formula: production costs equal sales, and equals advertising. When revenue is up, you expand reporting, your base.

Don’t blame the internet, or broadcast media. Broadcast media is mostly headlines and breaking news with occasional depth for contrast. Print, where we can peruse our interests and skip the rest, is where we spend more time. Print can cover a wider range of stories, and in depth, especially if the editor is open minded enough to include many view points – more than just the “usual suspects.”

Internet can lend even more depth, but is still not quite as conveniently as print. (I do hope the Post adopts the convenient tabloid size). In addition, internet has no editors to build a convenient package of stories. Internet is still more a research tool. Not everyone is online but anyone can buy a paper when news looms large.

Yet the ability to click for more details could rebalance the online side of journalism with so much more available on the internet, often under various papers” websites.

Yes, if we are agreed, we could take readers to the original newspaper for the story. Metro Denver has many established, reliable neighborhood papers with online presence and writers who would love to address metro wide readers.

Denver Daily links much of the area, already. My own Civic Satisfaction could blossom from the central political calendar into political reporting, with much more depth than the Rocky or Post have done, just by calling for submissions, since I am a better editor than writer.

With the aid of Indi Media, Colorado Pols, Square State and more, with local and national bloggers, we could build and edit a very large package to peruse. Denver Voice knows the downtrodden. WestWord knows the arts. Sports writers are plentiful.

Cartoonists are hungry in every media. Consumer Reports and advice are always popular. National wire services sometimes cover their fields well and are moving toward specialties.

An editor could organize stories in real time. Then, a print version of the online site could combine and collaborate with other media to enough readership to compete with the Post and be very viable. The smaller sales would mean we could not double the profits, like the old newspaper formula, but then we were not looking be become another media mogul or even mogul group.

In Letters to the Editor, or Open Forum, newspapers look at the numbers of writers before deciding how many of what view points to include. An online-based newspaper can not only adjust the lead stories for interest from online readers, call for more depth or follow-up on a story, but also use that information to decide what stories to print.

I wonder who can advise me on how much to pay writers, syndicates and services? Any format programmers want to jump in?

If you are going to dream, dream large.

Walt Geisel lives in Denver and runs CivicSatisfaction.org. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online only column and has not been edited.